


Ages: Past and Yet to Come

by Midnite_Republic



Series: Prompted Pieces of the Sea [9]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Character Study, Gen, cross-posted from ffnet, written pre-reverie arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-06-01 03:50:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15134495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Midnite_Republic/pseuds/Midnite_Republic
Summary: Shanks has lived through more ages than on of his years should have.





	Ages: Past and Yet to Come

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for 20 Years at Sea, Day 9.  
> Prompt: Openings/Endings.  
> I love Shanks and his backstory is really interesting.

Shanks had lived to see the openings of more ages than his less than 40 years would show. This, of course, came with the seeing out of the previous ages as well.

He had been born into the age of before. The age of World Government expansion and stability. A time when the Marines and the World Government had had control. Although there were the occasional issues on the islands, wars and bandits, and pirates on the seas were still common enough. An age that spanned most of the first decade of his life before it ended and the next began.

The Rise of the Pirates. Not officially what it was called, but that was how he thought of it anyway. A change over in ages that had no true moment of demarcation, only able to tell it was when they had already begun living in it. It was an age where pirate crews finally began to be able to challenge the dominance of the World Government, in more numbers than just one or two at a time. Where their numbers and strength caused the Marines too much difficulty to just destroy them as they rose a little too far.

This was the age in which Shanks had become a pirate, when he was not quite still a child but not yet fully a teen. A cabin boy, an apprentice on one of those rising crews. The Roger Pirates gave him a home, friends and an education that he would not have had otherwise.

This age came to an end with the reign of the first Pirate King. The shortest age that Shanks had lived through. Not even lasting a full five years, for all they were some of the best memories he had of his youth. He did always think it was a little funny that the last year of the age was still considered as such considering Roger had disbanded the crew and disappeared.

The end of the Pirate Kings reign and the beginning of the next age was a point in time that Shanks and the rest of the world could clearly pinpoint, down to the second. Though he had had quite a few debates over the years as to when it was exactly. Some said it was as soon as Roger’s words echoed for the last time over the Loguetown square, while Shanks was sure it was when Roger let go his last breath. (He had been fifteen years old, watching the death of one of the men he most respected and had followed for years. He had made no attempt to fully hide his tears other than to slightly pull his hat lower over his face as the ages shifted around him.)

The Golden Age of the Pirates had been the longest age in which he had lived. It was the one in which he had built himself a life. A legend of his own. His Captain may have been the King of the Pirates but he was an Emperor, ruling beside (and against) three other captains. (Even though he tended to think of them more as lords, less than kings as they were.)

It seems ironic that Shanks be present at the exact moment that the Golden Age of the Pirates began, and then again in the moment it ended. The moments that two great rivals had ended the previous age and ushered in the next, more than 20 years apart.

This new age had yet to be given a name, but Shanks’ intuition told him that it will the bloodiest that he had yet lived through.

The only wish he still held was to live long enough to see the next change in the ages. To at least the beginning of the reign of the second Pirate King.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed.  
> If you were wondering about Shanks' age timeline that I was working off, I posted my explanation on my tumblr, [here](https://midniterepublic.tumblr.com/tagged/Ages%3APaYtC).  
> Comments make me smile.


End file.
